Rolls Royce wants to move freight with gigantic drone ships

This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

The “big” drones we’re familiar with are generally the size of a scaled-down airplane. Rolls Royce, however, is working on some that are really, really big… possibly about as big three or four football fields.

These superships aren’t real yet. Rolls Royce is showing off “virtual reality prototypes,” which mean the drones are currently shuttling digital containers around a digital ocean inside a room full of servers. They’ve got a simulated bridge which shows panoramic views from the boats’ decks, too.

It’s the company’s belief that these unmanned freighters can move containers more efficiently — reducing both financial cost and pollution. The drones can be built without a traditional bridge and don’t require compartments for crewmen. Rolls says they’d be lighter than today’s ships and burn 12 to 15% less fuel.

And since they don’t require a human crew, they’d also be more than $3,000 per day cheaper to operate. That’s more than a million dollars over the course of a year for a single ship — though obviously it’s going to take a while to break even on a $10-million-plus purchase.

Rolls Royce has some hurdles to clear before these massive drone ships can become a reality. Top among those is maritime law. Right now, oceangoing freighters are required to carry a crew. Without a crew, a ship like Rolls’ virtual prototype would be considered unseaworthy and wouldn’t be eligible for insurance.

No company in their right mind would send out an uninsured drone with millions of dollars worth of cargo on board — not when piracy and storms can cause half a billion in lost and damaged freight each year.

But there’s no denying that unmanned vehicles are the wave of the future. Rolls Royce wants to make sure they’re in the captain’s seat when it comes to drone-powered ocean freight. As long as they can get policy makers and the 600,000 or so members of the International Transport Workers’ Federation on board — which will be a tall task — it’ll be smooth sailing for their futuristic freighters.